Hands Up: Hands Up

Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

4-When do human’s raise their hands? Well, lets say a thug or a soldier
has a gun on you. You raise your hands as a sign of surrender, that you
aren’t going to try anything stupid. When else do people raise their hands?
In class, to answer a question. You need to get the teachers attention but
be polite and not holler out in class. When else do we ever see humans
with their hands way up in the air? When they want to be picked up by a
bigger human, probably a dad or mom, or big brother. When else? A
concert or show, when deeply moved by the music such that say, clapping
just doesn’t express enough. People throw their hands up in the air. When
else? Ball games! Touch down, or a three-pointer at the buzzer. What is
this thing we do? Arms straight up in the air. Turn and look at your
neighbor in the stands. Chest bump. Maybe walk around like some kind of
half-crazed lunatic for a second, all the while arms straight up. What does
it say? Celebration. So we have a few meanings of raised hands then: 1)
surrender/ humility (the gun, or in class). 2 ) Need (picked up bv another). 3)
celebration and honor (concerts, sporting events). It’s not surprising then
that we also find raised hands in one more place, worship: a place where
we humbly acknowledge and celebrate the great worth of God and his love,
and our need for him! We’re taking a look at what worship actually is today,
and we’re going to use the image of raised hands to capture it.

4^1. Raised hands remind us that worship is an act of surrender.

Surrender is an act of humility . You put aside your pride, you bow
your head, you acknowledge that you are no longer in charge or in power,
that another is. “I surrender.” Folks miss this sometimes. If we are not
careful we start thinking of worship as “going to church”. But “going to

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Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

church” is different from “going to worship.” "Going to church" is more that
mentality of going to movie, or going to the maii, or going to a concert. We
go to these things to get something for ourselves. If we don’t like what we
see, hear, or get, we go away. This kind of going is a consumer move. It’s
not an act of humility. It’s an act of pride. If we think of worship as mere
going to church we start thinking in different terms:

4-Did they sing the songs I like?

^Does the speaker say things I agree with?

4-Did the service include the elements that I’m familiar with and make
me feel religious?

4-Were the people nice to me?

4-Did I like the coffee?

^-Not that any of these are not real thoughts or concerns, but the “going to
church” consumer approach isn’t the same thing as “going to worship.”
People who go to worship asks different things:

^Was God honored by us?

^-Did the songs help people believe and love God?

^'Was I nice to anyone so that they felt God’s love too?

4-Did God speak to my heart through the speaker, or in spite of the
speaker?

♦ You see, real worship is what a lover does to honor the loved . To honor
another requires humility on our part . This is why Uzzah’s story in included
in 2 Samuel 6. Lets return to our text. In verses 1-5 we get the picture.

The harps are playing, the tambourines are shaking in the air, the
percussion is pounding and the parade is off to bring the sacred Ark of God

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Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

up to Jerusalem. David wants to honor God by building a place to
represent his presence. The Ark, you remember, has been the physical
representation/reminder of God’s presence with his people Israel while they
wandered in the desert for 40 years. It was no idol. It was a box that
contained God’s words, (the Ten Commandments etched in stone), and
God’s provision (a jar of manna), and God’s calling (Aaron’s budded staff).
There was no image of God on it. Just two angels bowing toward the
center which was as before the invisible God this all represented. Verse 5
tells us that they were celebrating with all their might. We’ll come back to
that, but can I just ask, have you ever worshiped God with all the energy
you had in your body? But then in verse 6 we read that the cart teeters,
and Uzzah, God’s priest, not wanting the gold-plated box to slide off the
cart, reaches out to steady it. God strikes him dead on the spot. Boy that’s
a real downer! I imagine the music died out after Uzzah died. The parade
wound to a halt with everyone in deflated shock. What went wrong?

4-David has the records checked (1 Chronicles 15) and low and
behold, the Law of Moses required that the Ark only ever be
transported on the shoulders of the Levites, the priests. The ark was
never carried any other way except when the Philistines who had
captured it, sent it back to Israel on a cart. So they had been treating
God, in a sense, like the Philistines. They were not honoring their
High King on their shoulders like a sports team might honor their
MVP. They had put God in the trunk, in the back of a cart, like a thing
that you’re in charge of. So in this case, God made an example out
of Uzzah, in the same fashion of Ananias and Saphira in Act chapter

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Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

5. It’s like he was saying to his people, “Whoa, hold on a minute.
Don’t act like I’m a lucky rabbit’s foot or something.

>There’s a second element in the humility theme in this
passage as well. David dances before God. But in verse 20 his
wife Michal calls him out! This is the king, and he’s not
behaving with the pomp and circumstance that kings ought to
maintain, in her opinion. Take a look.

^ “David said to Michai, “It was before the LORD, who chose
me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he
appointed me ruler over the LORD’S people Israel- 1 will
celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more
undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.
But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honour. ”
And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her
death.” 2 Samuel 6:21 -23, NIV.

4-David is well aware that to God is the holy one. God is the great
one. David’s hands were up in the air in surrender to the honor of
God. What does verse 14 say? David, wearing a linen ephod,
danced before the Lord. So the king has set aside his royal robes,
and donned the humble smock of a priest because it wasn’t about
what happened to David. He was honoring God. In fact, David
sought to bring the Ark to Jerusalem simply and most importantly to
show the country that, although he was their president, so to speak,
God was the real ruler of the land!

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Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

>That’s it isn’t it? That’s why we come to this building every week. That’s
why we stop in the mornings to open the word and talk with our Savior.
That’s who the songs are for here. God’s good will is why we bring an
offering and give away our dollars. Worship is a humble act that recognizes
the superiority of the God who made us and gives us life . Kinda like when
you raise your hands in surrender.

^2. Raised hands remind us that God is worth ceiebrating!

Lifting up hands toward heaven was a pretty universal action among
the Hebrew folk. The hebrews were not so still in church as some of us are
today. Listen:

^“Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the LORD. ” Psaims
134:2, NIV.

^'Here the raised hands are praise. But they also are prayer.

^“A psaim of David. O LORD, I caii to you; come quickiy to me. Hear
my voice when I caii to you. May my prayer be set before you iike
incense; may the iifting up of my hands be iike the evening sacrifice. ”
Psaims 141:1, 2, NIV.

4-“| remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and
consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah” Psalms 143:5, 6,
NIV.

^'Here the raised hands are prayer, appeal to God, and delight in him. So
what do we see? Worship is the celebration of the goodness of God ! It’s
even in the etymology of the old English term: Worth-scipe, to ascribe
worth and value!

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Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

And what, you may ask, is valuable about God? Just this: his love for
people. His desire to live among and with them, which is what the Ark was
a symbol of. The God of the universe is no small trinket, yet at the same
time he loves his children, his creations. That’s why he sent Jesus his son,
with hands raised and outstretched in embrace! This is what David and
Israel were learning as they brought the Ark to Jerusalem.

^-God is holy and above, and over, and beyond. Think Uzzah’s
mistake. But God is also a blesser of mankind. In verse 9 David
starts to think, “Uh oh. Maybe I made a mistake about getting close
to this God.” So he leaves the ark on the nearest farm. But then that
farm gets 3 months of blessing, and David discovers that while God is
great, capital “G”, he is also good.

4-In C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver
describes the might and majesty of Aslan, the lion, who in reality is a
representation of God. When he finishes, Lucy asks, ''ls--is he safe?"
Replies Mr. Beaver: "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course
he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King I tell you."

4-Conclusion: I want to encourage you, on David’s humble example to
lean in the direction of learning to worship with all your might. That is, to
celebrate God as joyfully as you celebrate when the Cubs win (oh, wait a
minute, bad analogy.) What if we rejoiced in God, bodily like we do at a
concert! Have you ever tried laying prostrate on the ground in your private
prayer, before the eyes of God? It’s a typical biblical position of worship.

Try it this week and meditate on what it makes you feel?

4-When we worship we do a number of things: 1 ) we bow to a
greater power and authority. Think raising your hands in surrender.

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Hands Up, 2 Sam.6

2 ) We celebrate beauty, goodness, and worth. Think raising your
hands in excitement! An old gentleman in one of my previous
churches told me once that sometimes in worship his heart feels so
inspired by God that he wants to raise his hands up in the air. But in
his church growing up, that was frowned upon as charismatic
emotionalism. So, he said, sometimes he just puts his hands in his
pockets and turns his palms up!! Raising your hands in worship is
not charismatic. It’s Hebrew! The Hebrew word for praise (yadah)
comes from the word for hand (yad). It means to throw up the hands!
God’s first people were very physical in their worship. They bowed in
submission. They stood in respect of the word. They would kneel in
humility, or lie prostrate in awe. They would hold out their hands in
expectation, surrender, and celebration!

4-Now, we don’t have to do this. We could opt for the Michal syndrom:
remember her? She despised David for not being cool, for not maintaining
image and prestige in public. But how does that approach end up except
barren, cold, and alone. Be careful about being too cool. It can leave you
cold! We are unwise, friends, when we let our religious practices, whatever
they may be, become more a “going to church” than a “going to worship”.
The one becomes a job I feel obligated to perform. The other is a party for
a loved one. Which would you prefer? Which do you think God enjoys
more?

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